Prime Minister “deeply concerned” by Peter Francis claims he was told to find “dirt” that could be used against members of the Lawrence family, shortly after the 18-year-old’s murder

David Cameron wants an immediate investigation into allegations a former undercover police officer was part of an operation to “smear” the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence

Downing Street said the Prime Minister is “deeply concerned” by claims made by Peter Francis that he was told to find “dirt” that could be used against members of the Lawrence family, shortly after the 18-year-old’s murder.

Mr Francis said he was also asked to target the friend who witnessed Stephen’s murder and campaigners angry at the failure to bring his killers to justice.

A No 10 spokesman said: “The Prime Minister is deeply concerned by reports that the police wanted to smear Stephen Lawrence’s family and would like the Metropolitan police to investigate immediately.”

The claims surfaced as a result of a joint investigation into undercover policing by the Guardian and Channel 4's Dispatches programme, to be broadcast tonight.

Mr Francis, who reportedly posed as an anti-racist activist in the mid-1990s, said he came under “huge and constant pressure” to “hunt for disinformation” to undermine those arguing for a better investigation into the murder.

He told the Guardian: “I had to get any information on what was happening in the Stephen Lawrence campaign.

“They wanted the campaign to stop. It was felt it was going to turn into an elephant.

“Throughout my deployment there was almost constant pressure on me personally to find out anything I could that would discredit these campaigns.”

Scotland Yard said it must “balance the genuine public interest in these matters” with its duty to protect undercover officers.

Mr Lawrence, an aspiring architect, was stabbed to death in April 1993 by a group of up to six white youths as he waited at a bus stop in Eltham, south east London.

In January 2012 Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of being involved in the unprovoked attack and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Mr Lawrence’s mother, Doreen, told the Guardian: “Out of all the things I’ve found out over the years, this certainly has topped it.”

She added: “Nothing can justify the whole thing about trying to discredit the family and people around us.”

A Met Police spokesman said: “The claims in relation to Stephen Lawrence’s family will bring particular upset to them and we share their concerns.”

He added: “The Met must balance the genuine public interest in these matters with its duty to protect officers and former officers who have been deployed undercover, often in difficult and dangerous circumstances.

“We are therefore not prepared to confirm nor deny the identity of individuals alleged in the media to have been working undercover, nor confirm nor deny the deployment of individuals on specific operations.

“At some point it will fall upon this generation of police leaders to account for the activities of our predecessors, but for the moment we must focus on getting to the truth.”

Jack Straw, who as then home secretary ordered the Macpherson report into Scotland Yard racism in the wake of the murder, said he would refer the allegations to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

“I am absolutely appalled by these revelations. They go to the heart of the issue of the integrity and the ethics of the police service, or the lack of both, in part of the Metropolitan Police at the time of Stephen Lawrence’s murder in 1993 and for some years after that,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today.

“When I saw the Dispatches programme, or part of it, at the end of last week I said to the producer that I would be considering referring these allegations to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

“Having thought about it further, and also noted that there has been no explicit denial from the Metropolitan Police, I am now going to refer this to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

“These are really serious allegations. The IPCC have the resources to get to the bottom of what happened here and they have also got the powers to do so.

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The Editor

Mark Thomas

Liverpool-born Mark joined the Daily Post in January 2014 after seven years as editor of its Merseyside sister title the Liverpool Post. He started out as a weekly news reporter on Wirral Newspapers, and spent seven years at the Daily Post and Liverpool Echo. He was The Press Association's regional correspondent for North Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire from 1983 to 1997, before returning to the ECHO as deputy news editor. He has won a number of journalism awards, including the UK Press Gazzette Regional Reporter of the Year award, and in 1993 wrote a book on the James Bulger murder.